Kaspersky Lab researchers have discovered severe flaws that could transform popular smart cameras into surveillance tool. According to the research, the uncovered flaws could allow attackersto obtain remote access to video and audio feeds from the cameras, remotely disable these devices, execute arbitrary malicious code on them and do many other things.
Modern smart cameras contain an advanced number of functions, providing users with various opportunities: people can use them as advanced baby monitors or for surveillance systems which spot intruders while no one is home or in the office. In their latest research, Kaspersky Lab experts uncovered something extraordinary: not just one, but a whole range of smart cameras was found to be vulnerable to a number of severe remote attacks. This was due to an insecurely designed cloud-backbone system that was initially created to enable the owners of these cameras to remotely access video from their devices.
Following the discovery, Kaspersky Lab researchers contacted and reported the vulnerabilities to Hanwha Techwin, the manufacturer of the affected cameras. At the time of publication, some vulnerabilities had already been fixed, and the remaining vulnerabilities are set to be completely fixed soon, according to the manufacturer.
These attacks were possible because of the way these cameras interacted with the cloud service was insecure and open to relatively easy interference. They also found that the architecture of the cloud service itself was vulnerable to external interference. It is important to note that such attacks were only possible if attackers knew the serial number of the camera.
Kaspersky Lab experts were able to identify almost 2,000 vulnerable cameras working online, but these were only the cameras that had their own IP address, hence were directly available through the internet. The real number of vulnerable devices placed behind routers and firewalls could actually be several times higher.
In addition, researchers found an undocumented functionality, which could be used by the manufacturer for final production test purposes. However, at the same time criminals could use this hidden avenue to send wrong signals to any camera or change a command already sent to it. Besides that, the feature itself was found to be vulnerable. It could be further exploited with a buffer overflow, potentially leading to the camera’s shutdown. The vendor has now fixed the issue and removed this feature.
“The problem with current IoT device security is that both customers and vendors mistakenly think that if you place the device inside your network, and separate it from the wider internet with the help of a router, you will solve most security problems – or at least significantly decrease the severity of existing issues. In many cases this is correct: before exploiting security issues in devices inside of a targeted network, one would need to gain access to the router. However, our research shows that this may not actually be the case at all: given that the cameras we investigated were only able to talk with the external world via a cloud service, which was totally vulnerable,” said Vladimir Dashchenko, Head of vulnerabilities research group at Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT.
In a statement, Hanwha Techwin said, “The security of our customers is the highest priority for us. We have already fixed the camera’s vulnerabilities, including the Remote Upload and Execution of arbitrary malicious code. We have released updated firmware available to all our users. Some vulnerabilities related to the cloud have been recognized and will be fixed soon.”
